Soul Food
by Kaesteranya
Summary: This is my dumping area for drabbles, shorts and flash fiction pieces I've written for Soul Eater. Most of them will be crack, some of them will be introspective, and a few more will probably be gay.
1. Idiots will be idiots

**Idiots will be idiots.**

_The title for this piece is taken from the 31 Days theme for December 30, 2007._

* * *

If anyone ever bothered to ask Death the Kid about his rather unique way of holding his weapons, they would have been treated to a very roundabout, very lengthy lecture on bilateral symmetry and complex aesthetics and precision and efficiency on the battlefield. His side of the story revolved around the workings of the body and how holding his guns upside down and pulling the trigger with his pinky fingers was not only his way of proving to the world that even the weakest part of his hand was stronger than anything else, but also because it was more aesthetically pleasing to the eye for guns to be held upside.

Asking the Thompson sisters led to a very short and straightforward. In their transformed forms, the handles and triggers of their guns comprised of certain sensitive parts of their body, and Death the Kid was only too aware of this fact every time he picked them up. Holding the guns upside down was his downright weird albeit very Death the Kid-ish way of retaining some sort of dignity.


	2. Do not feed the animals

Do not feed the animals

**Do not feed the animals.**

_The title's taken from the 31 Days theme for April 16, 2008._

_I'm not really sure about the accuracy of this piece because I haven't gotten very far in the manga, but I DID ask someone who's pretty much up-to-date, and it seems as though this idea works. Then again, it might not. Er. Yeah. _

Death Scythe could not bring himself to tell his daughter this, but he had, from the moment he had seen her with Soul Eater at her side, been thoroughly tempted to tell her that it just wasn't going to work out for her and her weapon. He could see it coming from a mile away, written in that particular way Soul loped after Maka's more feminine steps, in that particular, girlish warmth that pretty much emanated, albeit awkwardly, from her whenever Soul was around. They trusted each other; they admired each other; they would guard each other's lives with their own, right down to the final fatal moment. That sort of pure, earnest feeling could only end badly – it ran in their blood. Other Weapon Technicians and their partners were safe from that.

Soul Eater was not going to be the problem: Death Scythe did not trust anyone but himself and his ex-wife with his daughter's safety, but he was not about to deny that Soul's capabilities as a Weapon, even if he was a little wild. He did not want to think that the trouble was going to start from Maka's end either; she was more her mother's daughter than she was his daughter, after all. Still, he knew that something was bound to go wrong. It had for him, and he had played shadow for his Weapon Technician just the same way Soul did for Maka. It had for Maka's mother, and she had looked at Death Scythe the way her daughter looked at Soul.

Trust and strength could be different – and separate – from love: if Death Scythe could have just those words to give his daughter, he would have. Instead, he found himself smoking another cigarette and walking back to the girly club where every worker, waiter and bus boy knew his face and name.


	3. The only constant is change

**The only constant I am sure of is this accelerating rate of change.**

_Set WAY before the manga, when Spirit/Death Scythe and Stein were still students at Shibusen. Also, please note that the title of this piece was taken from the 31 Days theme for May 7, 2008._

* * *

Their battle with the target had gone on for so long that at one point, both of them nearly wondered whether it would ever end or whether they would make it out alive. Still, they had defeated their enemy and he had taken one more soul; now they were one step closer to their one current and real reason for living.

"Still alive, huh?"

"Fuck you."

Franken Stein merely smiled his crooked smile and pushed himself up with his one good arm; the other one stayed limp and useless against his side. The Weapon Technician struggled up, set his back to the nearest wall (or more like, what was left of it) with a quiet sigh; he spent a few minutes catching his breath before he pulled out his cigarettes from the inner pocket of his coat. Spirit watched him because there wasn't much else to do at the moment, given how badly he was hurt. Not too many things could harm a weapon like him, but they had had the misfortune of facing one of the few that night.

"Gimme one."

"Get your ass over here then, _senpai_."

Spirit growled. Stein took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled the smoke with a long, satisfied sigh. He was nearly finished with his first cigarette and well on the way towards lighting up a second when Spirit finally gathered up enough strength to drag himself over to where he ways. The technician rewarded his partner by stuffing a cigarette between his lips and tossing him the lighter.

"Enjoy."

They might have stayed like that for an hour, sitting there with a beaten up pack of cigarettes between them, smoking, saying nothing, staring at the soul floating before them. Sometime afterward they kissed, and a little further down Stein's hands were in Spirit's pants and Spirit forgot all about his cigarette. No eyes to see them but the laughing moon's, but even if there had been others they probably wouldn't have cared.

"I've talked to Shinigami-sama already. I know you wanted me to tell you first, but… I felt that I had to do it soon."

Spirit said this much later, breaking the silence of mingled breath and skin. Stein didn't do anything but stare at him; he had expected more resistance, or maybe just more of _something_ other than wide eyes, set lips.

"My new technician's special, and I think I'm in love with her, but whether I am or I'm not doesn't really matter. I just know I want it to be her."

No answer. Spirit got up and took another cigarette as he went for his clothes. When he threw Stein's coat at him, the Weapon Technician only blinked.

"I'll see you in class."

He left as soon as he was dressed.


	4. A headcase, but his record was clean

**A head case, but his record was clean.**

_Written to the prompt "philosophy and insanity". I took some liberties with Stein's past since the canonical text isn't very clear on the details._

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 14, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

The Technician Frank N. Stein cut up his very first living being – a bird – because it had fascinated him, how such a small and fragile thing could fly so quickly and sing the way it did. He had told himself that he was merely looking for answers – it had not been about killing the thing, robbing it of its life. What he ended up finding more pleasure in, however, were the moments when the bird's frantic chirping had quietly faded away, silenced by the anesthesia, and later, when his scalpel buried itself inside the little thing's chest and peeled away at it, carving away the resistance of the flesh with the shining edge of its blade. In the span of a few months he graduated from birds to frogs to cats to dogs and moved his subjects up in size and rarity. A year afterward, he was rummaging through graveyards, digging up corpses that nobody would miss in order to push his studies a little further. He soon grew bored of studying dead bodies, however, and started on people. Suffice to say, his parents were not particularly happy about that. Stein thanked them for all the years they spent raising him by turning them into his next test subjects. In between experiments on others, Stein began to turn the blade upon himself, studying the workings of his own body, turning his own flesh inside out in order to see exactly how it crawled and covered him.

Stein has come to believe that there is, indeed, an order to everything, even the madness of a tornado or the noise in his own head. He believes that with enough cutting and concentrating, one can reverse engineer everything and become acquainted with each one of its parts and how each part connected seamlessly with the other in an endless slew of patterns and possibilities. All human beings possess this curiosity – it manifests occasionally, and sometimes in the most morbid of fashions. Stein, however, sees no shame in acting upon it. His obsessive search for the order in all the entropy defines him, continuously pushing him forward, bringing him closer and closer to the edge.


	5. I will put Chaos in 14 lines

**I will put Chaos in fourteen lines.**

_I figure that this one takes place during that period after Medusa's attack on Shibusen Academy both in the anime and manga, where Stein is quietly wrestling with the insanity within him. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 23, 2007._

_

* * *

  
_

Everything is doused in Vaseline, he logically concludes, after staring up at the sky and wondering, for one full hour, why everything up there seems to be moving with preternatural slowness, crawling along the laughing sun like maggots over a corpse.

Even the sounds of the city around him are odd and echoing back against his ear, as though he were down in the bottom of some lake and attempting to listen to what was happening above the surface.

The only clear thing he hears is this strange little noise just at the back of his head, in the shape and cadence of a silvery, feminine laugh that he would know anywhere by now.

He tried to shut it out at first, but now he strains to listen closer and latch on to it, because everything else seems too distant.

This is what _she_ has done to him, tapped in something that he thought he lost, that he hasn't had since he was a freaky little kid who carved up his own parents because they told him that carving up other people was bad.

This is where she has left him, after he ripped her in half and showered in her blood.

Cut up things should have stayed dead – why, then, is she reflecting back to him in the mirror, smiling her snake woman's smile?

He wants to bring her back and kill her again, just so that he can be 100% sure of her demise.

(He wants to kiss her on the mouth and steal her last breath into his lungs and maybe fuck her, just before she goes.)

"…Hey. You all right?"

It is Spirit speaking, his upperclassman and old partner.

"Of course," Stein automatically replies.

He turns away and fails to notice the frown on the redhead's face.

He's too busy turning in on himself and tuning back into his internal radio, sifting through all the static to hear her laughter again.


	6. Listening to the rain

**Listening to the rain**

_This takes place, quite obviously, in the past, and quite possibly only in my head canon. _ The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for April 24, 2007._

_

* * *

  
_

It started, for the most part, the way an average day ought to – with the laughing sun and him fighting off the inexplicable urge to rip up the next thing or person that seemed vaguely interesting to him. Stein wisely decided that a smoke was in order, as packing in too much nicotine in his blood system often fogged up his mind just enough to keep his less socially acceptable instincts at bay. The silver-haired young man decided that it would be in his best interests to perform such overdosing in a secluded place, and promptly hiked out of his laboratory and up to the rooftop of his house, where he could sit just at the edge where the wind was nicest and smoke away.

He must have been working his way through his second pack when Spirit appeared out of nowhere, coming around and wordlessly plopping down behind him, using his back as some sort of makeshift chair – it was certainly not the first time they had sat in that fashion, but that did not change the fact that Stein hardly cared for the interruption.

"So you're bored enough to come around, are you?"

"She and I talked last night."

Given the fact that people had the propensity to drop lines like that at the most inappropriate times, Stein could only wonder why everyone was so caught up with the fact that he liked to cut things open. His quirk, at least, was not mentally disturbing and emotionally upsetting. The Technician took another drag of his cigarette rather than reply. Talking was useless; Spirit was going to go on whether he liked it or not, and, true enough, the redhead was speaking almost immediately after Stein entertained that thought.

"She… really wants to leave me."

"I think any woman who has gone through what she has at your hands would want to."

Cold and harsh, but it was the truth and that was exactly how Stein liked to deliver it. Three drags afterward, and he thought he felt the back against his own quiver, shaking in that quiet, sad sort of way that made people like him distinctly uncomfortable.

Stein put out his cigarette and thumbed out another one. In the meantime, Spirit snuffled, wiped his tears away with the back of his sleeve, and said nothing at all.


	7. Ten out of nine times

**Ten out of nine times.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 26, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

On the day that he managed to convince (blackmail) his daughter into spending one whole day in his company, Spirit makes it a point to comb his whole apartment three times over, to make sure that the general cleaning he did a week back did not miss a single spot. He knows only too well what Maka thinks of his philandering, and really: randomly sitting on vibrators or tripping on frilly lady panties wasn't the sort of thing that a daughter wants to find herself doing when she comes into her father's humble abode.

Maka herself arrives a few hours later, just after Spirit had finishes wrestling with his tie/his hair/his suit/his shoes in front of the bathroom mirror. He's about as overenthusiastic as a puppy before a walk, but the fire dies just a little when he greets Maka with a grin and all he gets is rolled eyes and a look that says Let's Get This Over With even if her mouth's saying Hello. He offers to drive. She says, coolly, that she prefers to walk. So they walk, and Spirit's forced to trail exactly six steps behind her because she gets all edgy and annoyed-looking whenever he tries to walk at her side.

Their first stop is the bookstore, where he's bobbing up from the shelves trying to crack jokes about the titles and she's pointedly ignoring him in favor of the History section. Their second stop is the soda fountain, where he meets one of his old one night stands and spends a good amount of time trying to extricate himself from her arms while Maka looks impassively on with a raised eyebrow and the straw stuck in the corner of her mouth. Their third stop is the basketball court, where Spirit hangs back, watching Maka smile for her Weapon the way she's never going to smile for him as Soul takes a break from shooting hoops with Black Star and Maka putters off to get him a drink. The smile disappears the moment she rounds back to meet her father, and he's forced to pretend that nothing's changed.

Later, just as they're heading up the stairs to Maka's apartment, Spirit looks at the expanse of her shoulders and curve of her back and wonders if it's okay for him to reach out and pat her. Just pat her. No words, no nothing; just a gesture of paternal affection. By the time he musters up the courage to, however, they're at her floor and she's walking back into her unit with a careless See You Later to him over her shoulder, and Spirit ends up mumbling his farewell in return to a closed door.


	8. I'll put you in my book of memory

**I'll note you in my book of memory.**

_The title of this work is taken from the 31 Days theme for January 24, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

Their first and last was a drunken fuck on the night that Spirit's wife threw divorce papers in her husband's face and walked out of his life for good – the Death Scythe had called his ex-Technician up in the middle of the night, blubbered like an idiot, and generally acted like a pest until Stein grudgingly agreed to come over with a whole lot of booze and just enough sympathy (or at least something that could pass as sympathy).

Spirit doesn't remember much of anything, so Stein takes it upon himself to commit every detail to memory: the taste of salt on his ex-Weapon's face, the fumble of their hands and limbs over the sheets, and how almost-nice it had felt, hearing a man who fucked women over a regular basis moan his name into his ear.


	9. Curiosity kills

**Nevertheless, to be curious is dangerous enough.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for December 29, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

"What the… is he bitching about symmetry AGAIN?"

"He's always bitching about symmetry, Soul."

"I feel sorry for Liz and Patty."

"Kidd's a fucking weirdo. I wouldn't complain about boob sizes, if you know what I mean."

"…"

"Um. Okay. Shutting up now."

"HEY! Y'KNOW WHAT'D BE REALLY FUNNY?!"

"I only want to know if you'll _keep your voice down_."

"SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU. ANYWAY, WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF, LIKE, PATTY AND LIZ WERE GUYS? WHAT'D KIDD MEASURE THEN, HUH? HOHOHOHO, I'M SUCH A GENIUS!"

"…"

"…Well…"

"If he's bitching about boob sizes when they're girls, then… if they're guys…"

"…"

"…"

"Ohgodatleasthe'snotgonnatouchMYdick."


	10. Oh, most beautiful darling!

**Oh! Most beautiful darling.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for November 28, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

Soul remembers seriously underestimating Maka Albarn the very first time they were introduced. He remembers seeing her straight-backed and all goody-two-shoes during their batch's first assembly, remember the sight of her with her nose buried deep into a book when they took their seats in their new classroom. It wasn't fair of him, of course, but Soul has never been about what's fair. He's a Weapon, after all, and a guy at that: people like him made their lives easier by stereotyping, because it was a whole lot better than doing all the horrendous legwork that came with socializing and playing nice and generally wasting a whole lot of effort on being hopeful about mankind in general. That, and maybe he thought that Maka's shoulders were too small and too thin, certainly not broad enough to shoulder the weight of his scythe.

What changed his mind, though, was the sight of her in a cute one piece black dress, head tilted, ear fine tuned to every twist and turn of the random little melodies he plunked out on the piano in his heart. What made him decide that she was going to be the one to wield him in battle was the sound of her voice and the steady look in her eyes when she smiled and said she loved his music.


	11. Nothing could be better than this

**Nothing could be better than that.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for November 11, 2007._

_

* * *

  
_

Although he makes a big show out of living nowhere else but on the battlefield and gobbling up the spirits of the wicked for breakfast/lunch/dinner, Soul actually likes the moments off the battlefield best. The lulls between the fighting. The quiet moments before, during and after class.

They bring him back to center, the days he'll wake up and there's no class, just Maka puttering around the kitchen and the smell of bacon and eggs on the fryer. He flops onto the couch after the mandatory Good Mornings, flips on the telly. Sometimes, she'll chop him with a book when the food's ready and he's too lazy to get up to go eat at the table like a proper Weapon. Other times, if he's lucky, she'll hop over and join him, bringing both their plates with her. Either way, they talk, and it's perfectly cool.

They spend the rest of the day apart after that – him in the living room, her at her desk, him watching the telly, her studying for this-and-that subject, both of them looking up at each other occasionally.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course, Soul never going to mention these things – it's probably the farthest from cool, telling people that Sunday mornings are his mornings of choice. And there are times when Soul feels he really doesn't need to, because somehow, he knows that Maka knows.


	12. Inside and out

**Inside and out**

_Because we all know that this is the sort of thing that turns our mad doctor on. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 23, 2007. Oh yeah: note that this piece contains spoilers for the Medusa Arc of the anime and manga._

_

* * *

  
_

Stein enjoys himself the most when they struggle, thrashing against the leather buckles strapping them down to his metal table, one that he doesn't bother washing clean because there's no real need for sanitation during an experiment like this. He likes it when they beg or curse – it's the only reason why he doesn't shove something in between their teeth to keep them from making too much noise. The blindfold, though, is necessary: too many of his specimens have died too quickly out of the shock that comes with watching someone cut their body open. It was in his best interests and in theirs that they did not exactly know what was coming.

He times himself during the procedures, checking to see if he can break his last record for enduring in as much as he can before the sight of a sweaty, warm body being systematically reduced to a quivering mound of neatly dissected flesh drives him mad. His reward for surpassing his limits is the pleasure of finger fucking his specimen if it is female, and jerking it off if it is male – it is most interesting, watching his specimen's faces as they find themselves torn between excruciating pain, warm pleasure and certain death.

He would have wanted to do this to Medusa, had she survived their fight. It would have been nice, tying her down and sewing her back together only to cut her apart again.


	13. Takes one to know one

**Takes one to know one.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for March 29, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

Tsubaki would be lying if she said that she had the purest of intentions when she decided to partner up with Black Star. She was a Weapon, a thinking monster raised as a warrior – she was raised to be the scentless flower capable of attaching itself to the closest source of smell and light. Black Star, then, was irresistible: he was proud, he was strong, and he had unshakable faith in whoever believed in him. She was the liar and the pretender dressed in the shape and scent and skin of a woman, and therefore a million times more dangerous than she would have been had she been a man. Manipulating someone like that should have been easy.

Odd then, how, years down the line, she was forced to admit defeat to his stupid laugh and the strength of his grip around the handle of her blade.

Tsubaki wonders, sometimes, if Black Star was ever aware of her deceit. The moment they come together on the battlefield, however, as a Weapon and her rightful master, she figures that maybe it isn't important. Maybe deceit, she realizes as he sees the shadow of the demon lurking just beneath her Technician's grin, is just part of the foundation upon which their partnership is built upon.


	14. Your road to freedom

**Your road to freedom that you build with flesh and bone.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 21, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

It's odd, but ever since he stopped walking alone and started letting Angelica tell him where to go and what to do without ever really saying anything, it's become harder and harder for Mifune to wield his swords. His blades used to be an extension of his own body – he was so attuned to them that slicing and dicing people became about as natural as breathing, and killing was as effortless as moving. They were feather light, virtually weightless, so much a part of him as his own arms and legs were.

Nowadays, he drags the case carrying his blades around like they're deadweight, and the leather strap burns a line right up against his skin, much like the heat of Angelica's small hand nestled against his palm. Nowadays, he makes his battlefield and every time he swings his sword against another living being he can feel the body pushing back, resisting the killing intent in the edge of his weapon. They are no longer corpses, no longer a means to an end, and sometimes, on particularly bad days, their eyes look exactly the way his witch's does, every time she turns to him with a smile.

He knows that it is just a matter of accepting the weight of a life, but every time Angelica's curled in his lap and he stops himself from touching her hair because there's blood on his hands that no water's ever going to be able to wash out, Mifune knows that it couldn't be that easy. He'd brood on it if he had the time, but somehow Angelica always wakes up just before he can get started on it and in the act of offering her candy, he forgets to think or to feel guilty all over again.


	15. The past is another land

**The past is another land.**

_The title of this piece is taken from the 31 Days theme for June 26, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

She's a strange and scrawny thing, Stein finds himself thinking as he watches Maka Albarn. She's strange and scrawny and looks too much like her mother for his tastes. Her mother, the one who barely had half his talent but managed to steal everything from him. Her mother, Spirit's wife.

He tells himself that he isn't bitter. He tells himself that in a way, it is a good thing, not having Spirit around, breathing down his neck every time he got that telltale twitch in his hand that warned most knowing people that he was out to literally cut a bitch and it was probably best to stay out of his way. He tells himself that he's better off alone, that he can find other weapons to play with and Spirit certainly won't be the last one.

Still, he sees Spirit's brat and watches her closer than he ought to and wonders what it would be like, living in the possibility that Spirit had never met his wife and Maka had never existed and that they – he and Spirit – were still together, Weapon and Technician, friends and fuck buddies and almost-sort of-lovers all in one.


	16. Xanadu

**Xanadu****.**

…_I know the prompt was meant to be for their first time ever, but I couldn't get this image out of my head._

_

* * *

  
_

She's on the bottom half of the bed and he's near the top; there's a digital music player between the both of them, and they've both got their own set of earphones. And they're kissing (mouth-to-mouth, tongue against tongue) to the rhythm and rhyme of the music. They break away during the bridge – a mutual need for a little distance, for the desire to stop and stare at the face of their partner right before they drag each other over the edge.

"We have classes in the afternoon, you know," Maka says, but her hands are busy pushing his tank top up and off of her Weapon's body.

"We can skip," Soul retorts, because it's very hard to resist a disheveled-looking Maka, his one and only Meister, sprawled beneath him on a bed.

She blushes, he blushes, and they kiss again just when the bridge ends, and another stanza unfolds within their ears.

They're done making out and raring to move on to the next step near the end of the song; Soul catches it just in time, puts the player on loop before slipping it into the underwire of Maka's bra, right between her breasts. She shivers, of course, both because the metal's cold against her skin and because Soul's so close, so very close, but not nearly close _enough_. And he knows what she wants, doesn't need to have the bond between them to be able to tell. He can see it, in the way her fingers and toes curl against the sheets, the way she squirms to press her skin against his.

He lifts her skirt, runs a hand over the smooth curve of her calf, her thigh, then over the cloth of her panties, right over her crotch. When he pulls that away, fingers her gently, she rises to an all new height, lips grazing his ear, gasping his name. He stirs her up, works up the heat, in tune to a crescendo.

Later, as he enters her, timed with the chorus/as she reaches out to draw him over her body like a living and breathing blanket, whispering out her favorite lines over his skin, they realize somehow, without really thinking about it, that it's an act of trust, tangling together, dancing to the same song. He's never been good with trust (because no one understands his jazz), and she's never been big on romance (because it never worked for her parents) – they should be, in fact, that last two people on earth who'd come together this way.

Still: they're young, they're in love, and willing to give each other everything, no matter what, and maybe that's all that matters.


End file.
